Purpose: As China's economic development enters new normal, employee happiness degree of small and micro enterprises will take on new features. The purpose of this paper is to discover the characteristics of changes in employee happiness, and provide reference and management suggestions. Research design, data and methodology: This paper determined the factors affecting employee happiness, established a measure model of happiness, measured and analyzed employee happiness by selecting more than 1,108 employees from 30 domestic small and micro enterprises. Results: First, the overall level of happiness in small and micro enterprises is relatively low. Second, there is no significant difference in happiness perception among employees in terms of the six factors. Third, the employees of small and micro enterprises have the highest happiness in three issues, including work distribution, internal interpersonal relationships, and less institutional constraints, the happiness on the two compensation benefits and a democratic management issue is the lowest. Fourth, gender factor has no significant effect on employee happiness, while age, working years, education, position, and the nature of employment have a significant impact on happiness. Conclusions: Employee happiness of small and micro enterprises will take on new features. Some human resource management suggestions are proposed from different perspectives based on the survey results.